During Homecoming I chose to go with my fellow Rose Scholars to the Botanical Gardens. The funny thing is that the first time I went there was before Homecoming last year. If there’s one thing I learned is that to really appreciate a place you can’t just aimlessly walk around it.

Our tour guide was Peter Davies, a former professor at Cornell. He told us the history of the gardens. We learned, for example, how part of the property was owned by the Comstocks. Davies encouraged us to interact with the gardens by letting us in the herb garden and allowed us to break off different herbs and smell them. One that stood out to me was chocolate mint! It actually sort of smelled like chocolate and reminded me of those Andes Chocolate Mints!

From being able to interact with the garden, I felt that I was better able to appreciate having it at Cornell. It didn’t seem like an uptight garden where you feel like you can’t touch anything. Since we were allowed to touch the plants and smell and even eat them I felt like this was our garden. That it wasn’t the garden of the university that we don’t have access to. Rather, it felt like the garden was made for the students to enjoy.

When I had originally gone to the gardens a year ago I didn’t feel that connected to the gardens. It sort of just felt like a garden and that was all because I had no idea we were allowed to touch the plants! Being able to interact with the plants makes such a difference!

Davies told us that students at Harvard have to drive an hour and a half to their botanical garden. This helped me to appreciate Cornell more. Because we have such a big plot of land here on Ithaca everything on the main campus is accessible. We’re able to walk to each building here at Cornell. Cornell’s campus, unlike other Ivies, isn’t split up where you would have to drive to get to another building. Plus, the botanical gardens from West Campus I think was only about a 20 minutes walk.

It’s a common complaint that Ithaca is in the middle of nowhere. We’re not in the bustling city. But, that’s what’s so great about Cornell. I’m breathing in fresh air here and since we’re not in a crowded city we can have a big garden that is open to all. And it’s serene in the garden here. I’m not hearing the blaring noise of traffic. I hear nature: the wind, the birds, and the leaves rustling on the trees.

The botanical gardens reminded me that Cornell has a special magic quality that other Ivies don’t: it’s peacefulness.